“We’re not dealing with files. We’re dealing with people that we live with.”
Recently, CPI Global Professional Manager Lesley Rynders blogged about the challenges of building a
common language of respect and caring in the workplace—in particular, the fact that our unique cultural experiences can inform our individual perceptions of what “respect” and “caring” truly mean.
For podcast guest Trudy Metcalfe, this challenge is central to her work in crisis management. As a Certified Instructor, she’s responsible for bridging professionals with different responsibilities with the common language of CPI training. As an Inuk, she’s also tasked with bridging the Inuit community’s cultural values to the training process as well.
In this month’s episode of
Unrestrained, Metcalfe shares valuable tips for taking a culturally sensitive approach to facilitating training and managing crisis in the workplace. You won’t want to miss this critical conversation—it can help you develop a more inclusive and caring culture of safety in your workplace, no matter what you do for a living.
Making crisis management skills culturally relevant empowers an individual to see the benefits in every aspect of their life—not just at work.
Trudy Metcalfe’s experience as a crisis worker has informed her perspective on life—training can be a source of empowerment for individuals to proactively address stressors before they escalate, and keep their cool when a crisis explodes around them. “If there’s a way we could reach everybody . . . just making it available so that people are able to just use it in their everyday life when they’re out on there on the side of the street, or in the grocery store, if they see something happening, they can respond to it in an appropriate manner.”
In her wide-ranging, heartfelt conversation with
Unrestrained host Terry Vittone, Metcalfe covers topics including:
- Ways to account for cultural differences in the workplace—even those you might not know about
- Why learning about the cultural experiences of others can help you more constructively address their trauma
- The importance of the train-the-trainer model in translating CPI’s global standard of crisis management to unique settings and communities
- How to cope with secondary trauma as a crisis worker, and why it’s so vital to make time for recovery
- The adverse effects of transgenerational trauma, and the value of a trauma-informed response
- Why org-wide training is essential to ensuring sustainable, effective crisis prevention
Subscribe to Unrestrained: A CPI Podcast and never miss an episode.
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Make sure to subscribe to Unrestrained, and please take time to leave us a review! Your feedback helps us identify the experts and issues that matter most to you and bring them to future episodes.
And if this conversation brought you new inspiration and excitement to connect with your team about what’s possible with CPI training, make sure to check out our
2015 interview with crisis worker and nurse Laurie Barkin, who shared her own perspectives on delivering person-centered crisis management and
coping with compassion fatigue.
Guest Biography
Trudy is an Inuk (singular for
Inuit) originally from Nain, Nunatsiavut, the northernmost community on the coast
of Newfoundland in eastern Canada. All of her career choices have involved working with or for the Inuit community. In her early twenties, Trudy was a crisis intervention worker and performed community outreach for
Tungasuvvingat Inuit, one of the Ottawa Inuit Community Centres. From there, she became the general manager of
Larga Baffin, a medical boarding home for individuals relocated south to Ottawa for medical services not available to them in the northern territory of Nunavut. After 14 years at Larga Baffin, Trudy left her position because of the effects of post-traumatic stress, brought on by dealing with individuals experiencing intense medical difficulties and trauma. After a brief retirement to ensure her mental well-being, Trudy went to work at the
Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre. There, in addition to her duties as a parenting program coordinator, she utilizes her status as a CPI Certified Instructor and provides
Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training to the organization’s staff.